Hello everyone!
Our fall is starting to get a bit more wintery so I figured
it’d be a good time to write up another update.
The second Friday of October had Susan and myself going to
Comedy Works downtown to see Iliza Shlesinger.
We haven’t gone there in just about forever and had a nice time. The opening acts were meh but Iliza was quite
funny.
The following Sunday we went to a rallycross down at Pikes
Peak International Raceway (PPIR).
Usually the courses are a mix between dirt and pavement but this time
the course designers stuck to only dirt for the day. Since I had just finished replacing the
clutch a few days before we weren’t able to perform our usual high-RPM
clutch-dumping starts and instead lightly slipped the clutch which hurt our run
times. This was ok as we were still
relatively competitive. Unfortunately
the hose that goes between the turbo and the intake manifold popped off during
my second run and caused me to not be able to finish the run (big
penalty). I didn’t figure out the
problem and then a solution in time for Susan to even get her second run
(massive penalty). It’s really too bad
as, even with our plodding starts, Susan would have had a really great day if
she’d gotten that second run. A fellow
racer let us borrow a hose clamp (ours was somewhere on the course) which we
used until lunch when we rushed to the nearest auto parts store for more (a
friend actually ended up finding the original one by the time we got back). Of course we still had fun and the car made
it through the rest of the day just fine.
Susan went with some other female racecar drivers to paint
pretty pictures on the Sunday before Halloween.
They went to Canvas and Cocktails which is where an instructor instructs
a group of artistic nonplusers on how to paint a painting while adult beverages
are beveraged. I spent that time
relaxing with the pugs on the couch which was just fine with me. The day before we had run around doing
errands and I had swapped out the summer tires for winter tires on three of our
cars.
Our cell phone batteries seemed to not be working as well as
they had in the past so we had a service shop called UbreakIfix replace
them. It was more of an ordeal than it
should have been as the new battery Susan got didn’t accept a charge at all and
the second replacement battery basically gave her the same lousy performance as
her original battery (my new battery was fine).
The day before Susan was going to get a third battery installed there
was a tragic accident and her phone’s screen was shattered. It ‘twas a bummer but we ordered her a new
one right away. She was able to activate
an even older smart phone which barely functioned but was able to perform basic
phone stuff while she waited for the new one to arrive.
Our Halloween weekend wasn’t as much fun as it was
productive. In preparation for Barbara’s
(she will be referred to as “Mom” from here on out) visit the next week we
spent the majority of the weekend cleaning up the house (she needs to visit
more often so we don’t let the house get so dirty and disorganized). As we were finally relaxing on the couch and
I managed to have another crown pop off (the second in as many months). The fact that I was flossing at the time has
led me to believe the universe has a sense of humor or doesn’t care.
The next Friday I picked up Mom from the airport and we
caught a light lunch at The Olive Garden.
Before I left for the airport I noticed the Subaru (“Jay”) was steadily
leaking antifreeze. I guessed a hose
cracked due to the recent cold temperatures and I picked up a new one on the
way home. It turned out the thermostat
was the culprit so, after a quick trip to the auto parts store and few minutes
under the car, Jay was fit for duty being Mom’s transportation for the
week. Susan’s unexpectedly massive new
cell phone (seriously, it is huge) arrived in the morning so while I packed up the
trailer and rally car for race day she worked with tech support getting her
phone up and running. Mom called it a
night early and headed to bed in the green room (so-called since its walls were
green when we bought the house and we haven’t repainted) while Susan and I
stayed up later than we probably should have.
On Saturday we attended the final rallycross event of the
2015 season at CORE. The day started
early with our alarms set for 4:30 in the AM.
Mom originally wanted to travel to the event with us but our projected
length of the day (over 12 hours) had her driving Jay separately instead. Mom arrived around the time the first drivers
were due to race and sat with us in the timing bus while Susan and I worked the
timing system for the first run group.
Then we fit Mom with a loaner helmet in preparation for her riding along
while we raced and got into grid (where the cars line up waiting to race). I had mounted our camera inside the car to
capture the moment which turned out to be delightful (I link to the video
below). On some level Mom knew what was
going to happen but that knowledge didn’t prepare her for the actual experience. She rode with both Susan and myself for a
total of eight runs and had a great time.
At lunch she left to see Marshall while Susan and I stayed to finish the
day. We ended up doing well with me coming
in first and Susan sixth in our class of 16 drivers. It was a great way to end the season. True to our original estimate we didn’t get
home until almost 7:00 that night.
Sunday had me and Susan sleeping off the prior day’s
excitement. We finally rose around 9:00
to visit with Mom before she left to see Amanda and her and Marshall’s two little
girls, Carmen and Caylee. They went to
lunch at Red Robin and took pictures in the park across from the Columbine
Library. We were warned that we were
going to also have some pictures taken so we showered and had the pug’s nails
clipped and filed before Mom came back home.
The sun was getting low in the sky when I drove us to our local
elementary school where Mom had scoped out a few potential background trees. The experience served as a reminder as to why
we almost never take all four pugs outside the house at the same time. Even though they were relatively well-behaved
it was still a challenge to pack them in and out of the car. We sat in front of some nice trees with the
pugs and then Mom for a few pictures.
The weather was gorgeous and the pictures came out nicely.
Susan and me had to work Monday which worked out for Mom as
she spent much of the day with Marshall.
In the evening we then met Marshall at the Macaroni Grill for dinner
which was nice. A piece of the chicken
in my chicken parmesan was essentially uncooked and had to be sent back to the
kitchen. The replacement dish was
perfect and, true to my nature, I still managed to finish my meal before anyone
else.
Again, Susan and me had to work on Tuesday. In the evening we went to Canvas and
Cocktails to try our hands at painting while imbibing. In attendance were Mom, Susan, Susan’s sister
Kari, and myself along with other strangers.
After donning our smocks we pumped out the necessary paint for the
evening’s activities and waited for the other attendees to arrive (seriously,
when are we not early?). The painting
was to be a simple tree with a few colorful leaves and red birds on a blue
background. The instructor was fun and
encouraging and walked around giving pointers where she thought they were
warranted. We were mostly quiet as we
concentrated on our work. In the end Mom
and me went rogue in our paintings while Susan and Kari stuck closely to the
original design. All the paintings came
out great and we had a really nice time.
I was able to take off work on Wednesday to hang with Mom so
I did. There was snow on the ground from
an early morning storm but it melted quickly and didn’t affect the road
conditions much. We ran a few errands
and ate lunch at Little Holly’s Asian Café before Mom left in Jay to pick up
Carmen and Caylee from school. Susan got
off early from work so we could pick up Kari and drive up to participate in a
riot. Specifically our good friend Matt
is a Sergeant for Adams County Sheriff and asked us if we’d like to throw
bricks (small 2x4s) at him and his fellow officers as part of their riot
control training. This was too crazy a
thing to miss out on so we had to go. The
riot was held on their training facility’s skid pad (a large asphalt lot) and
the sun was almost done doing its daily sun thing by the time we got
started. It turned out to be more
interesting than fun as we and the other fortyish volunteers kept retreating
from the officers in riot gear whilst throwing our scraps of wood. Molotov cocktails were also utilized but not
by any of us rioters (I think throwing them might have been more fun than
interesting). We were supposed to yell
and taunt the officers but the three of us found this more to be more daunting
than just gathering up and throwing wood and we were largely quiet. It was cold and an almost constant breeze
made us even colder. This precipitated
us leaving around the midpoint of the ordeal.
We decided our lack of effort in the face of mildly poor weather conditions
meant that we should give up on our shared dream of quitting our day jobs and
becoming fulltime rioters. Darn.
On Thursday we drove up to Aspen Park to have lunch with
Susan’s parents, John and Karen, at DW’s 285 Diner. There we ate a mix of breakfast and lunch
food stuffs while talking about this and that.
John co-drove another racer’s rallycross car all season and we talked a
lot about racing and Mom’s first experience with it. It was a nice time for sure. Once we got home Susan and Mom knit together
for hours while I sat with the pugs and played video games. As a last hurrah we had dinner at Vesta
Dipping Grill downtown. The food was fantastic
and we stuffed ourselves. The only
disappointment came when we were told that their signature dessert had been
discontinued. Matty’s Wacky Apple, I
lift a glass in your honor. After dinner
we went home where Mom helped Susan enter in information on a genealogy website
for the remainder of the evening. I was
content to fall asleep on the couch.
On Friday morning we attempted a couple of errands before
heading up to the airport where I dropped off Mom. It was hard to say goodbye after her weeklong
visit. Hopefully she comes out again
soon!
The next evening had us up at Matt and Jana’s house for BBQ
and UFC on pay-per-view. We got to see
their new giant baby boy Kainin for the first time. He’s quite the cutie. Their two year old Elle played with Susan for
much of the evening which was expected as all little girls like Susan (always
have). The food was tasty and the fights
were entertaining. It was pretty cool to
see Ronda Rousey get dethroned on live TV for no more reason than it was the
first time it has happened. We stayed
past 11:00 before tiredly heading home.
We spent Sunday recuperating from the past week.
In other news the pugs are healthyish. I bought some human nighttime eye goo for
Sophie and we’re thinking that it may actually be restoring her vision
slightly. It’s hard to tell as she still
runs into things though not as much lately.
Satchel isn’t sure what to think about being made to do her business
outside but is mostly compliant. Tweetie
is still her little tweet-self. It’s
just been over two years since we adopted Bella and stopped fostering
pugs. It’s hard to believe she’s eight
years old as she still runs around all crazy-like. We love them all.
That’s pretty much it I think. I hope this finds you happy and healthy!
Max and Susan
